THE EVENING HOURS

By Nadine Brozan

Published: March 7, 1986

''THIS is the pulpit you've been waiting for,'' the Very Rev.

James Parks Morton, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, said to Bishop Paul Moore Jr. of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, looking down a staircase into the living room of Virginia Kress's apartment.

The crowd below had assembled to celebrate, in advance, the centennial observance on June 4 of the beginning of serious planning for the cathedral. Solange Herter, chairman of the forthcoming event, described it as a ''church supper'' where 1,000 will dine at refectory tables. Guests will temporarily be assigned places in heaven, she said: ''Buyers of tickets at $1,000 will be called archangels, those of tickets at $500 will be angels, for $300 they will be seraphim and $150, cherubim.''

When they weren't listening to speeches, guests were either discussing the activism of the cathedral or admiring the extraordinary collection of early Renaissance paintings in the apartment. Jocelyn Kress Turner greeted the United Nations Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, and his wife, Marcela, and said: ''They once invited me to Peru for two weeks and I stayed for three months. And we're still friends 20 years later.'' IT was an evening of nostalgia, camaraderie and bear hugs when the National Academy of Popular Music celebrated the induction of six members into its Songwriters Hall of Fame this week at the Plaza. Sammy Cahn looked at Mitchell Parish, recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award, and remarked: ''He wrote everything that I didn't write. We were born in the same neighborhood, the lowest part of the Lower East Side, and he is an idol of mine.''

Mr. Parish made his contribution to the sentimentality of the occasion when he received his award: he sang ''Stardust.'' Jule Styne, a new member of the Hall of Fame, noted that it was the 24th honor he had received in a single year. ''It's nice to be remembered,'' he said, ''and I deserve it.''

Though the legions of songwriters present insisted that they do not normally talk shop at social gatherings, many were embroiled in discussions about a bill pending in Congress that they said would abolish their right to license music. ''I was in Washington lobbying all day,'' said Hal David. ''I only came back to come to this extraordinary dinner.'' SISI CAHAN lives in the same East Side apartment as Ismail Merchant, the producer, and James Ivory, the director, so what could be more fitting than for her to throw a supper party for them and the stars of their new movie, ''A Room With a View''? And considering that a picnic is a key scene in the movie, what could be more logical than a picnic?

So Mrs. Cahan rounded up 14 friends, ''the ones I thought most likely to have read the book,'' took them to a screening and then back to her place in a van. There such E. M. Forster readers as Nancy Lady Keith, who is known as Slim; Peter Duchin and his new wife, Brooke Hayward; Gene Hovis; Robert Mapplethorpe; Joe Armstrong; Susie Frankfurt, and Charles Ryskamp cheered the film makers and the stars, Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands.

The menu: Stuffed eggs (''You can't have a picnic without them,'' the hostess said), Texas sausages, cold poached chicken, breaded veal, stuffed tomatoes, ''booze cake'' and madeleines. ''The most wonderful thing about this picnic is that it is not outdoors,'' Mrs. Cahan said, taking her guests out to see the terrace. NOT many people at the cocktail party and auction to benefit Madre, an organization that helps women and children in Central America and the Caribbean, recognized the man who came in and immediately bid $8,000 on a handmade Italian doll. No one else at the spirited proceeding in the Victoria Munroe Gallery in SoHo bid against him, so he upped the ante to $8,500, wrote a check and marched it up to the auctioneer.

The philanthropist turned out to be Prof. Irwin Corey, the comedian, and despite the serious nature of the cause - sending medical equipment to Nicaragua - he couldn't resist cracking a joke. ''My son told me to buy the doll because it must contain C.I.A. secrets,'' he said.

Elaine de Kooning watched the bidding with some trepidation. ''You always have a secret fear when you have something on the block that no two people will want it, and the point of an auction is that two people compete.'' She had no cause for concern. Her 1957 drawing of baseball players went for $1,300.